The Mind of Man I
Beneath my skull-bone and my hair,Covered like a poisonous well,There is a land: if you looked thereWhat you saw you'd quail to tell.You that sit there smiling, youKnow that what I say is true.
My head is very small to touch,I feel it all from front to back,An eared round that weighs not much,Eyes, nose-holes, and a pulpy crack:Oh, how small, how small it is!How could countries be in this?
Yet, when I watch with eyelids shut,It glimmers forth, now dark, now clear,The city of Cis-Occiput,The marshes and the writhing mere,The land that every man I seeKnows in himself but not in me.
About this text
The Mind of Man I is in the public domain. This text is taken from Poems - First Series, Project Gutenberg ebook #37860; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: John Collings Squire, The Mind of Man I, in Poems: First Series (1918), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #37860, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/squire-poems/the-mind-of-man-i.html, id L23172.
Form and metre
The Mind of Man I is 18 lines in 3 stanzas of 6 lines each. The metre is iambic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 85%).
See other poems in iambic tetrameter.
Measured by Laurel's pipeline, not copied from a handbook: how stress and metre are counted, how rhyme is lettered, how a drifted rhyme is found. Where the dictionary cannot confirm a rhyme the letter is withheld, not guessed.
Rhyme words, stanza by stanza
The word that ends each line, lettered by the rhyme it makes; a dash is a line whose rhyme the dictionary could not confirm.
- 1 ABABCC hairA · wellB · thereA · tellB · youC · trueC
- 2 ABAB-- touchA · backB · muchA · crackB · is · this
- 3 -A-ABB shut · clearA · occiput · mereA · seeB · meB
Scansion, line by line
Each line with its syllable count and the stresses the words themselves fix: / stressed, ˘ unstressed, · a syllable the word leaves free and the metre decides. Read against iambic tetrameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| Beneath my skull-bone and my hair, | 8 | ········ |
| Covered like a poisonous well, | 8 | /˘··/˘˘· |
| There is a land: if you looked there | 8 | ········ |
| What you saw you'd quail to tell. | 7 | ······· |
| You that sit there smiling, you | 7 | ····/˘· |
| Know that what I say is true. | 7 | ······· |
| My head is very small to touch, | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| I feel it all from front to back, | 8 | ········ |
| An eared round that weighs not much, | 8 | ··˘····· |
| Eyes, nose-holes, and a pulpy crack: | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| Oh, how small, how small it is! | 7 | ······· |
| How could countries be in this? | 7 | ··/˘··· |
| Yet, when I watch with eyelids shut, | 8 | ·····/·· |
| It glimmers forth, now dark, now clear, | 8 | ·/˘····· |
| The city of Cis-Occiput, | 8 | ·/˘··/˘˘ |
| The marshes and the writhing mere, | 8 | ·/˘··/˘· |
| The land that every man I see | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| Knows in himself but not in me. | 8 | ··˘/···· |
The reader shows the same poem with its rhymes coloured and a stress row above each line, the notes beside their stanzas, and any word's definition on a tap; the analysis page takes the whole book apart. How every part of this site was made.